Apparently, none of the 21 people mentioned in the acknowledgments questioned the source of the dataset. One of them also wrote a quite popular Twitter thread about the research. When notified of the recent events, he curtly replied that "It indeed seems like the data used in the paper is unreliable." [no need to mention them by name, I think]
This happens again and again in research - I'm just reminded of the stem cell scandal around Obakata. Before the fraud was uncovered: dozens of senior researchers supporting the research, using the glory for their own gains. After the fraud is exposed: nobody wants to have been involved, it was only that one junior person.
It doesn't excuse the fraud of the junior person but it makes you think how many senior-level people out there are riding similar fraudulent waves, doing zero checks on their own junior people's work.
Most of the processes surrounding and supporting science are not robust against a dedicated adversary seeking to exploit the system. This is nothing new - Newton ordered and then wrote the anonymous report commissioned by (iirc) the Royal Society to decide who invented calculus, him or Leibniz.
Basically, science is quite vulnerable to malicious exploiters. Part of this is because society isn't funding science anywhere near sufficiently to do a priori in-depth checks. You claim you got data on hundreds of measurable thingies in a certain way (from surveying people to scanning the web to whatever)? If it's not blatantly obviously a lie, it'll probably be accepted. Which is inevitable: at one point, you're going to have to accept the data as genuine. If there's no obvious red flags, you'd only waste time on further checking data - you'd need to do a real deep dive (expensive time-wise) to come up with circumstantial evidence that may still be explainable in a benign manner. For scientists, it is almost always more profitable to spend such time investments on furthering their own scientific efforts.
So yes, there are various ways in which someone willing, dedicated and sufficiently skilled can "Nigerian-Prince" the scientific process. Thankfully, the skill to do so typically requires intimate knowledge of the scientific process and how to conduct research -- this cheating is not easily accessible to outside bullshitters (yet).
a) because it is a general problem, observed time and again
b) I don't see how calling them out by name in this forum might be helpful
c) I don't know the whole story - maybe some of these people actually raised concerns or wanted to but felt powerless; causing people, search engines and LLMs to associate them with this case of scientific fraud seems potentially bad
d) maybe I'll have the chance to discuss this paper with them on social media or in person - then it would not be good idea to publicly shame them now.
Thanks. I’ve always subscribed to “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, so while calling them out by name on this forum might not make a measurable difference, I think there is widespread benefit from people being worried about their reputation.
